[1988 Pt. 3]

[Several Hours Later.]

Nathan held the blue box close to his chest as he glared defiantly at his grandmother who was looking at him with thinly veiled amusement.

"I want to learn wanded magic from today, Gran."

She nodded before saying, "Which as I told you right now, you will be allowed to do, Nathan. But you will not be allowed to keep your wand with you until you have learned some spells from either your father or me. Now give the box here, sweety, I will give it to you when we are practising."

Nathan grunted, it made sense, a child could harm themselves greatly if they used magic without supervision, so the request was not at all wrong, but he wanted to get the basic charms done so that he could work with the spell he had created as fast as possible.

'After all, that spell is perhaps the best defensive spell, that a person could have made. I want to try out the words of power too.'

He slumped before he handed the box back to her and said, "Take care of it, will you?"

She nodded before saying, "Why don't you check out the books you bought today?" as she said this, she offered him a brown package that she had been holding for him as they returned from the shopping trip.

Nathan nodded as he had bought four books from Flourish and Blotts, he had been eyeing those books for some time on the owl order service.

He nodded before taking the bundle in which the books were wrapped from his grandmother and making his way towards his bedroom.

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Nathan entered his bedroom and immediately started tearing into the package.

He unwrapped the cover and wandlessly floated three of the four books into an empty spot within his bookshelf as he opened the fourth one using his left hand.

The book he picked up was Transfiguration Guide by Quinn West. Quinn West was an American Wizard who was an expert on Transfiguration, specifically Battle Transfiguration. He was also the man behind the famous magazine known as Transfiguration Today. The man was praised by Dumbledore himself for his skill in the field.

'It is a sad thing that the old man hasn't published a book himself,' Though it wasn't like it hurt Nathan much, he wasn't really going to be at a level anytime soon where a master of the field wasn't enough to teach him.

According to the first chapter of the book, Transfiguration was the use of magic to turn an object into another object. The only limitation to the field was the magical reserves of the wizard.

The best way that Nathan could describe Transfiguration was--- Broken but very complicated.

There were three types of transfigurations - Intermediate Transfigurations, Animated Transfiguration and Fashioning Transfigurations.

Intermediate Transfigurations or Object-to-object transfigurations were the changing of one specific object to another specific object. It was simple and required only the use of one spell.

Fashioning Transfigurations was changing the aspects of an object to create a different and completely unrecognizable object. The aspects that could be changed were shape, material, state and size. The more aspects a person wants to change, the more spells would have to be used.

Animated Transfigurations involved changing an inanimate or animate object partially or completely into another animate or inanimate object. It was a branch that combined the use of both fashioning and intermediate transfiguration along with charms to accomplish it.

The more Nathan read the book, the more it made sense to him why McGonagall was having children with such weird transfigurations in the books.

Transfiguration did not just require the knowledge of a vast number of spells like Charms when using intermediate transfigurations, it also required one to be creative and imaginative when they used fashioning.

Animate transfigurations likewise were a combination of both of those branches along with the use of charms to help.

Nathan could not wait to get started on the branch of magic.

It was three hours later that Nathan found himself in the company of his mother, who was looking at him with a grin.

Nathan asked tentatively, looking at her, "So? You are the one who will teach me wanded magic, Mum?"

"Yes! I asked to take over your charms study," Irene said her grin widening, "I am the best at Charms, so it makes sense that I will teach you, no?"

Nathan smiled seeing her excited look, he liked learning from her. She was always eager to spend time with him and teach him.

Parents spending time with children and actually teaching them things were sadly uncommon, even as Jason, he had known his parents loved him very much, but they did not provide him with as much attention as his new parents.

'Working from mostly from home must help.' -- Nathan knew that it was wrong to compare your relationships with people like this but he couldn't help but wonder about his old parents.

He shook his head before looking at his mother and asking, "So what are going to learn first?"

His mother smiled and said, "First you need to know the three basic rules of handling wands."

She held up a fist and opened one finger as she said, "One, always treat your wand with care. A wand is a symbol of a wizard's power and prestige in the wizarding world, it should be treated with respect. Even treat the wands of others with respect, nobody looks favourably on someone who desecrates a tool that holds society together."

Nathan nodded, he could understand the reasoning.

She held up another finger and continued when she saw Nathan nodding, "Never use a spell, you don't know the use and history of. The spell might be strong enough to ride the intent of just wanting to cast it and cause damage to you or others."

Nathan nodded, it was another problem with the modern method of spellcasting, a lot of the easier spells could be cast by just waving the wand and saying the incantation. Even if a wizard did not intend to use the spell, if the spell has enough intent of its own, it will draw the required magic and be cast upon the world. This was unlike its ancient counterpart which required one to mean and understand the spell before having optimal returns.

She held up her third finger and said, "And finally, most importantly, use magic as often as much as you can. You are a wizard, your magic is an expression of yourself Nathan, expressing your opinions and ideas using your magic is something that one should always try to strive for."

Nathan nodded. Magic might act like an event, but it does not mean it changed the fact that a wizard could control the extent of the event.

The larger and stronger an event a wizard could make, the higher his magical reserves were said to be. Magic was really subjective in nature, there wasn't anything like a magical core in which energy was stored to be withdrawn or a metaphysical muscle that could be exercised, no, magic just happened whenever a wizard willed it to happen.

She looked satisfied before handing him the blue box that held his wand. Nathan quickly opened it and caught sight of his wand. It was as beautiful as it had been when he had first laid his eyes upon it.

"It's a good looking wand."- Nathan nodded at his mother's words. The wand was the same color as his hair. It had no decorations upon it except for the handle that looked a bit darker than the wand's shaft.

"What is it made up of?" His mother asked and Nathan replied, "The woods are aspen and spruce, not sure which is the handle and which is the shaft while the core is made of the horn of a Swedish Short Snout."

"A horn?" she looked a bit thoughtful before brushing it off and said, "Let us begin, ok?"

Nathan nodded and took hold off the wand and immediately felt the heat in his solar plexus and wrist. The warmth was again not advancing beyond the wrist unlike when he used wandless magic.

"Let us start with the simplest charm that first years are taught. Lumos."

She put up her wand and the tip of her wand lit up.

Nathan nodded and slowly pointed his wand in front of him, the tip carefully placed away from both himself and his mother before he tried what he did with wandless magic.

He focused on the tip of his wand before closing his eyes and making a mental image of his hand holding the wand. He then willed the image to change to light up just like his mother before saying in a clear voice, "Lumos."

Nathan maintained the focus of the mental image as he felt around his solar plexus and wrist. The warmth was now greater and more focused on his fingers, the same feeling of invincibility which Nathan had grown used to ignoring.

He opened his eyes slowly and found himself looking at the soft glow of the lumos charm on his tip, though Nathan's focus finally broke and the soft glow disappeared.

"That was a fantastic Lumos charm, sweety." Nathan couldn't help but blush at his mother's praise.

His mother, however, ignored his embarrassment and continued, "You are learning to cast without wand movements."

"I will have the advantage of an extra year, why not use it to get better at actual skills instead of just learning spells? Casting without wand movements saves a lot of future useless effort to unlearn wand movements."-- Wand movements after all, were used to create a sort of muscle memory, so that just by repeating a wand movement, a young and inexperienced wizard could bring up a mental image without wasting a lot of time on it. By the end of a year, the movement would be so ingrained into a wizard's being that repeating them would bring up the mental image they wanted instinctively.

Nathan would have to focus to get the image quickly into his head but it wouldn't be a problem thanks to his Occlumency and wandless magic, both of which required careful emotional control and willpower training already.

"Such a smart boy, my little prince."- His mother giggled before she said, "Okay, if you want to do it properly, then cast the lumos fourteen more times. Once you are finished, I will tell you about the other variations of the lumos charm and the flare charm. Maybe we can get you started on a few of them as well, though I am not sure whether you will be able to cast them now or not."

Nathan nodded even as he thought, 'Let's hope, Transfiguration is as easy as Charms.'

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A|N:

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